The Social Security Administration estimates 22 percent of the U.S. workforce will retire over the next eight years. For the HVAC industry, which is chock full of retiring baby boomers, that percentage is probably much larger.

While HVAC’s experienced veterans continue to disappear into retirement, the industry has struggled to replenish its crop of skilled workers. Recent studies from the HVACR Workforce Development Foundation and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) quantify the need, estimating that 115,000 new HVACR workers must be trained by 2022 to meet an anticipated demand that is set to increase 14 percent, which exceeds the average growth rate for all other occupations.